Libertad humana: significados y operaciones de la voluntad

Tema IV: El hombre, ser libre

Significados históricos de la libertad

Significados históricos de la libertad

The idea of freedom has acquired different meanings, even contradictory ones, throughout history. These are some of the meanings that freedom has had:

• a) Physical freedom: associated with economic or property freedom.
• b) Freedom as wisdom: If you do not know what to do, you probably are not free. One of the great dangers of freedom is ignorance. But do not exaggerate it: knowing does not make you totally free.
• c) Freedom as prior or superior to wisdom (Aristotle): deliberation — a rationalistic assessment. Judgment of the intelligence, judgment of the will. If they agree, the decision is immediate. In the case of a collision between these two, a third step is deliberation.

Las operaciones básicas de la voluntad

Las operaciones básicas de la voluntad

Freedom has its root in the depths of the human person, who is a free being. Consequently, freedom permeates all the acts of the person, and even seems to be reflected in the special character of their corporeality. But freedom is based above all on the exercise of the will.

1. El deseo: It consists in the inclination towards a rationally grasped good that appears to us as good. Desire is the search for union or possession of the desired.
2. La elección voluntaria: If you turn to the past, to things that have already happened, it takes the form of approving or rejecting.
3. Dominio o poder: If the choice is oriented toward the future, it is called dominion or power, because I am in a position to decide about what my future will be.
4. Voluntad creativa: The creative will applies to all technical and artistic actions in which one gives shape to a subject.
5. El uso de la voluntad que llamamos amor: There is a use of the will that we can call love; it consists in the recognition and affirmation of a reality for what it is in itself and is worth. To love is to delight, to be happy in the good of another.